(Part 2) Best products from r/BurningMan

Pump

Pump upgrade This one really moves some water! You will need to increase your tubing/tee size from 3/8" to 1/2".

Jungle Special, good to have a spare.

Media Confirm size!! These come cut in various sizes. One of them goes all the way around the inside of the bucket. I like this media better as it allows better air flow. But you need to make a cage out of chicken wire to hold it up when its wet. Like a tubular filter cartridge. It can be found in pre-cut panels like the poly pads too.

Fan Get a spare, along with the pump. Pre-wired for quick change out if needed. If you don't have spares, you will need them. If you do, you never use them. :)

Flex Duct This can be 'shaped' to fit around the fan mounted on top of the lid. Its 5" duct. Kind of an 'off size' but works great for this. Some duct tape and you're all sealed up. Gently bend to the desired direction, wrap with a towel or bubble wrap for some insulation if you like. It comes compressed length wise at 29". It can be expanded to 8ft! Handle with care while shaping 'a square' to fit around the fan. And again when setting the direction you want it pointing. Cut to length if needed.

• A five gallon paint bucket with lid
  
• 3/8" ID Tubing.
  
• A 3/8" Barb Tee.
  
• Some wire & crimp terminals 3ft should do it.
  
• Switches for the pump and fan if desired.
  
• Deep cycle battery.
  
• Solar panel and charging controller.
  
• Or other 12VDC power source.
  
  I made a bin style cooler for last year. (It is FigJam inspected and approved! :) )But I used it for grey water evaporation. Used two of the big pumps and two fans. It held 6gals & would evap 2gals/hr in the heat of the day! 1-1.5gal/hr the rest of the time. Building a trash bin style for this year. It will have a 24"tall x15" dia 'cylindrical cage' for the media and an 8" radiator fan. Basically an upsized FigJam cooler but for grey water evap. The Bin is for sale.
  
  
  

Anything super perishable and that can be frozen, can be stored with dry ice. If you use a smaller cooler, and rarely open it, it will keep a good long time, frozen solid. We had frozen bacon in a cooler last year that stayed frozen until at least thursday with dry ice. No real special handling other than not opening that cooler.

Most things can just be stored in a cooler with ice. Maintain the ice, keep it stocked up, and you'll be fine. Do not let food items get wet, keep them in zip lock bags. Keeping your ice in large zip locks is a good idea too, as it can be used as potable water when it melts. Ice melt in a cooler is nasty stuff.

I don't see why you couldn't wash and dry quinoa. I have no experience there, but a good washing and some time in an oven should get it bone dry. Bag it and keep it cool.

Veggies will be fine. Try to wash them before hand, put into ziplocks and keep cool. Onions and tomatoes wouldn't need to be kept on ice, just kept out of the sun and kept cool. Put on ice if really needed. Cucumbers should be fine for the week in a cooler. Lettuce will be fine as well. Store unlike veggies in separate containers, as they ripen at different rates.

Really you should be fine, if you have good cooler management. Keep them off the ground and in the shade. You can wrap them in reflectix as well, this will add a bit of insulation to them. Make sure they close well, don't leave open or cracked. Keep frequently opened coolers (drinks, stuff like that) separate from storage coolers.

No Steven is definitely not family. He used to be the editor of the Bay Guardian and came up under Tim Redmond and therefore had great access to Larry. His political beliefs are pretty out there (no surprise) but he is a nice guy and he writes well. The Tribes of Burning Man is a pretty good read.

Lookin' good!

A couple of things I'd say -

• Look for a better headlamp. You'll use it every year (and whenever you go camping), so get a nice one. Spending a little money here is ok.
  
  
• Get some industrial quality particulate filters. These look kinda lame, but they will save you from weeks of feeling like a 3-pack a day smoker post-burn. Get a cool dust mask cover to put over it if you'd like or a bandana.
  
  
• Chap stick!
  
  

1. I've brought a canvas camp 450 to the playa the past two years. I have a friend that bought a few cheaper ones on amazon, and there is a noticeable difference in quality. If I could go back, I would make the same decision to spend a little more.
   
   
2. The 450 is a touch big for two people, but I like having all that space and it allows us to set up a pillow area near the door to host people.
   
   
3. I haven't tried any of these options, but I'm very interested in exploring this. The tent gets hot as fuck.
   
   
4. I've used two figjam swamp coolers which make it possible to sleep into the afternoon if one is pointed at your face, but they don't cool the ambient temperature of the tent much, and when you wake up the rest of your body is covered in sweat. This could be because my tent is so large or due to improper ventilation. I'm thinking about making two more this year, so that each of us is as cool as we'd want to be.
   
   
5. I string these all along each guyline and around the door frame. It looks awesome and having something like is a necessity so that you and your campmates aren't tripping any more than intended.
   
   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EHQWZSM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have lots of stupid little things that make my time nicer. One of the things that I learned that helps quite a bit is methods for managing your cooler.

• have a decent, well insulated cooler and keep it in the shade.
  
• have a couple of lidded containers that are wide and flat that can float on top of the ice and water in your cooler. Put your leftovers and open packages in these.
  
• have everything else in the cooler be in completely water tight containers that can be fully immersed in water (ie vacuum sealed or with water tight lids). Let the melt water completely cover everything that isn't floating on top.
  
  In this manner there are no warm spots and you are keeping things colder than you would a normal refrigerator (ie right at the edge of being able to freeze but not quite) and food lasts longer (milk and meat stay fresh for two weeks or more with no problems if kept like this).
  
  When adding ice, drain only enough water that you can add your ice. Since you've taken the effort to keep everything well sealed this water is clean and can be used for showering, evap cooling, misting, etc.
  
  
  To make your life easier, when transferring water, don't try to use the cooler's drain. Use a small fountain pump (and tubing). Depending on your electric systems at your camp, you can get 5V fountain pumps that plug into a USB port, 12V pumps that will run off of 12V battery systems or 120V pumps that will run off a generator. This in and of itself was a huge deal for me and saved me from making muddy messes in my camp.

I've used this type before and didn't really like it. Not a big fan of cups that don't seal. Not a big fan of straws. Not a big fan of plastic as it can leach flavor. (I got a terrible drink at a bar and it ruined a plastic bottle I had). Not a big fan of clear as light beers can skunk in minutes and sunlight warms drinks.

I'm trying to decide between:

24 oz metal, latching stein

18 oz metal/plastic, screw top, sliding sip hole travel mug

16 oz metal/plastic, screw top, flippy sip hole travel mug

The hard requirements were that it sealed, opens fairly easily, has a handle + way to clip, metal body, vacuum insulated, and some amount of flat space for stickers and my ID.

I really like the stein because it is big and I don't have to screw it off to fill it (which was the failing point of my last cup). I love drinking out of a completely open top, and unscrewing is a pain. But it isn't perfectly cylindrical for stickers like the other two. Also, it seems like it would need two hands to unlatch.

I like the 18 oz mug. It's a tolerable size, tons of flat area, fun colors already... but I'm not sold on the sliding plastic lid. I have one, and the lid is already leaching coffee flavor, spits up a bit when it slides, and it doesn't cover the entire liquid path, so I'll be drinking bits of playa mud if I fail to wipe it off.

I'm lukewarm on the 16 oz. Good amount of flat area. I love the D ring at the top of a hooked handle so I can either clip it mostly upright or hang it from the handle off a belt, handlebars, or basket. I like that the flip lid covers the liquid path. This is the most like my old cup, but my old cup wasn't cylindrical and the clip point was at the bottom of the handle, so if I clipped it on my backpack, it was inverted, and it wasn't perfectly sealed, I'd get some drips.

Shirt cocker reporting for duty.

A "shirt cocker" would be

a) a person at Burning Man wearing a shirt but no pants (more talked about than witnessed, these days...).

b) a bit of classic Burning Man lore, being considered by some, one of the few groups it's basically open-season on mocking (and firing pants at : see trouser-cannon, not the porno kind....)

My point would be that (most of the time) the person standing around with his pants off, offering creepy back-rubs, putting you off your bacon-breakfast in camp, or just merrily wandering the playa, is not simply lacking pants because they didn't bring enough trousers. It was a choice made for reasons which we can only speculate on, and attempts to simplify things to the most theopreticaly-plausible answer will often miss the point entirely (that said, I'm going with "feels amazing, seriously, you should try it").

It is a far-from-perfect analogy expressing my belief that Mr Yudkozky's argument is only compelling if you accept that the forces of rational-actors within an utterly-simplistic behavioral-economics model will solve more problems than his rubbish idea causes, via unintended consequence, and that all parties here are feeling even remotely rational.

Or to put it another way (I love sci-fi movies and I had a coffee...) THIS IS HOW SKYNET HAPPENS...

Open on two human figures, faces smeared with soot, emerging from a landscape dark with smoke and rubble, torn rebar jutting like skeletal fingers from blocks of concrete scattered like so many pieces of stale bread cast towards a flock of radioactive ducks.

A device hovers overhead that is 50% hover-drone and 50% scalpels.

Just seconds before it descends to chop our two protagonists into carpaccio, one of them howls, despondently, "Damn you AI researchers! You understood too much about machines, yet nothing at all about the human heart"

(camera lens obliterated by a stream of red mist).

I hope that has cleared up everything. I really should lay off the caffeine. If it makes it any clearer, you've seen the end of Planet of the Apes, right?

On a tangent, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OIZUC6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 is a great book, no?

I don't know why you were downvoted for this, it's a legit question. I ordered and returned 3 sets of snowboard / military goggles last year until I found some that fit over my glasses. I apparently have wide frame glasses (I never thought they were that unusual), so the goggles would always hit the outer edges.
Anyway these were the best I found. They are a bit large but come with two lenses, which is an awesome bonus.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MS8GP6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I'm just going to copy and paste this here, because it seems to fit. It's not as cheap as you're looking for, but it ran like a champ and recharged in a few hours.



My set up this year is going to be the following: Duracell Power Pack 600 & Instapark 30w Solar Panel. I took these to Lightning in a Bottle this weekend and used it to recharge 5 phones, power LED lights, and inflate air beds. The panel functioned quite well despite it being stupid hot and dusty out there.


Power Pack: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009YR00MI/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Panel: http://www.amazon.com/Instapark-Solar-powered-Duracell-Powerpack-Connection/dp/B00BN2T334/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1373951841&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=wagen+power+dome#productDetails

I bought one of these 10-packs and it was awesome, I kept 2 in my bag, the rest packed up at camp, and you can definitely reuse them so I have about 6 unopened ones left to use this year. It was comfortable, light weight, took up very little room in my bag, and far superior to a bandana for keeping out the dust.

http://www.amazon.com/3M-8511-Particulate-Sanding-Respirator/dp/B0002YKBV2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1372705915&sr=8-2&keywords=particulate+respirator+mask

+1 for cot & some kind of "carpet" in the tent. Been doing this for years. This year I used some old flannel sheets. Outside the tent door put one of these woven plastic rugs: they're super light and durable and don't absorb water or collect dust like regular rugs. (Normal rugs are a disaster—by the end of the week they weigh 100lbs. because they're full of playa dust.)

https://www.amazon.com/Reversible-Mats-116093-Outdoor-light-Green/dp/B004303BNQ

Also: A bed sheet to cover your bed while you're away—and use it every time! If there's a big blow while you're away at least your sleeping space won't be full of dust when you return.

I also use those clear plastic drawers you can get at Target or wherever — great for organizing your stuff while keeping it relatively dust-free.

maybe. If you're just circulating the air, then no. If you're bringing air from outside, then yes.

Once air is saturated with water, there won't be anymore cooling effect, and those misters tend to saturate the air with water pretty quickly. You need to bring in new dry air to have additional cooling effect.

However, keep in mind that you're still pumping out more water than the air can evaporate, so you'll have to tone it down significantly, or else you'll have too much humidity in the tent, which can cause a greenhouse effect, making it feel warmer than it actually is.

One thing to keep in mind about ultrasonic humidifiers -- they breakdown easily because the vibrating plate can be damaged easily, and is technically a consumable part. You can buy a bunch of ultrasonic plates on amazon so that you can quickly replace it when your plate wears out, however not all ultrasonic humidifiers make it easy to replace this plate.

Replacement plates: https://www.amazon.com/Chironal-Ultrasonic-Fogger-Ceramics-Humidifier/dp/B07FFTQ1T1/ . (keep in mind there are different sizes -- check your humidifier for the right ceramic diameter)

I would recommend getting a few of these 5 Gallon Water Coolers which you can fill up for pretty cheap at any local supermarket before getting out to the playa. When you buy ice for your food/drink cooler have these 10 gallon ziploc bags ready to pour the ice into. Once it melts and your ready to buy more you can pour that 10 gallon ziplock bag into one of these and bam! ice cold water, also reducing the amount of water you need to carry in - which means WAY less plastic water jugs.

Definitely, you just need to convert the 12v into a trickle charge. There are many ways to do this, some more efficient than others. There might be a AA charger that runs off of 12v, might have a cig lighter input and be in automotive sections. Let me look on Amazon and stuff.

​

• Here, this will do you just fine. does your solar have bare wire leads, or is it USB only? If you have wire leads, just cut the cig lighter off, and connect the positive and negative together and you're good to go
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Battery-Charger-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B07BFWHD7G/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=12v+AA+charger&qid=1565030427&s=gateway&sr=8-5
  
  ​
  
  more edit: here, all this should be whatever you're looking for-
  
  https://www.amazon.com/ARECORD-Cigarette-Lighter-Socket-Converter/dp/B01J67JIOQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=cigarette+lighter+socket+to+usb&qid=1565030691&s=gateway&sr=8-1
  
  ​
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Chanzon-Cigarette-Terminal-Accessory-Inflator/dp/B07CQMQL9L/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=cigarette+lighter+socket+to+wire&qid=1565030768&s=gateway&sr=8-7

These have ended up being my best lighting solution. You can attach them to yourself, your bikes, whatever. They're bright and it's not a "string" to deal with.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MY8L47Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s06?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Absolute game changer- hanging shoe organizer with CLEAR windows. best way to keep all your small items like headlamps easily accessible. I will never burn without it again... too much time wasted tearing my tent apart looking for things!


https://www.amazon.com/Over-Door-Clear-Organizer-Storage/dp/B000IXOH7G

According to NY Times obituary of Larry Harvey, Larry was influenced to create Burning Man by the book, "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property", among other sources. It gave me perspective on some of the "whys" of Burning Man. I recommend it.

​

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0394715195/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you want a really good look into the history of BM and a behind-the-scenes type of view, I highly suggest checking out Scribe's (author of the article) book "The Tribes of Burning Man" I've been a burner for 5 years and there is SO much that I learned from his book. It gave me a new-found respect for many aspects of the event that I just didn't have any info on.

I have rather large glasses, so I got myself these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MS8GP6/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They definitely fit over all my glasses (regulars & sunglasses), but only time will tell how well they perform at the playa...

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

https://smile.amazon.com/Bodyglide-Original-Anti-Chafe-Balm-Packaging/dp/B005L8YVRO

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^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

https://www.amazon.com/Bodyglide-Original-Anti-Chafe-Balm-Packaging/dp/B005L8YVRO

Saved me last year

What would you say about a 30w setup?

Would that make it worth the effort?